Motor vehicles are an integral part of modern societies. Beside providing the facility of transporting goods in the market place, they also transport millions of people on a daily basis and are used to provide services, such as public safety services. The burgeoning use of motor vehicles has given rise to a complex and expensive liability system concerning vehicular transportation. In nearly all states of the United States, for example, automobile insurance is required. Accordingly, much expensive litigation ensues in connection with motor vehicle accidents and other incidents.
The massive system of policies and claims that result from the insurance coverage and related litigation are subject to fraudulent abuse. Current estimates indicate that this phenomenon is on the rise, causing increased cost to the system, even in locales where accident rates are diminishing. In addition to fraud, the resolution of claims relating to motor vehicles is an inefficient time-consuming process that experiences additional costs by relying heavily on a tort-based legal process. As one measure of the increased burden that this phenomenon puts on society, legal costs concerning automotive injury claims is increasing significantly.
One problem related to these increased costs is the difficulty in providing basic documented facts concerning motor vehicle incidents. Beside the abuse of the process allowed by parties bringing suit in the hopes of an out-of-court settlement, costs are often significantly greater when a motor vehicle-related suit does end up in court. To combat these problems of documentation and out-of-control costs, many insurance companies and states in the United States are considering implementation of mandatory vehicle inspections and special investigation personnel units. However, these approaches are expensive, too, and this expense adds to the overall costs of the transportation system.
One approach to helping curtail these costs is to provide better data concerning motor vehicle incidents. This will help to curtail fraudulent claims. While other vehicle-borne systems have been proposed to provide information concerning automotive accidents, these systems are themselves subject to fraudulent manipulation. As one results, courts of law are not likely to give much evidential weight to such information systems unless they are secure.
Accordingly, it is desirable to have a vehicle-borne data collection system which is capable of securely recording data concerning accidents. Of course, such systems will have other applications, such as other means of transportation and other situations demanding secure preservation of data concerning events, such as bank security systems.